*My second consecutive byline taken from the Ramones. I’m not sure why this is; I haven’t been especially cranking the Ramones at all the last couple days.
One of the greatest occurrences in the life of a writer is discovering your artistic ancestors. That handful of times when the book in your hand, which may have an author’s name you’re familiar with, but whose work in words is still something unseen, even if you know them by reputation or biography, strikes you instantly. Zadie Smith called it something akin to the ideal author-reader relationship. She relates the times she’s met people for whom she thought she had the perfect writer. The ideal reader doesn’t need to be a writer of course. That’s my own peculiar place in the equation.
There are a couple dozen writers (in some cases, single texts) that I feel kinship with, or at least culturally, almost genetically descended from. It’s a matter for another time, but this group of particular artists is only a part of a larger gene pool of people, living and dead, that I feel familial towards, among them musicians, philosophers, painters, journalists, and of course acquaintences and friends. (It’s an upward spiral, inherently optimistic in its worldview, that ultimately includes every human in history.)
Those times when I’ve opened a book and, practically before I’ve even started the first line, and I’ve felt an immediate comfort, an instant companion, one that would never betray me, have been some of the most electrifying moments in life. Before I’m done with the first page, I’ve found a mate for life, a lost grandfather or grandmother or sibling.
Reluctantly, I admit Jack Kerouac is one. I say it sneeringly because I think only a fraction of his work is really any good. But he is my Catholic guilt, my mama’s boy, my infatuated observer, my sensitive mysoginist. Bukowski is my self-indulgent clown, recluse and misanthrope. Lorrie Moore, still very much alive, is my middle-class, midwestern humble self. Henry Miller and Kenneth Patchen are my wonder, my anger and passion rooted in sorrow, hope and innate love for and of Earth and its centrally written characters, the people. Hemingway is my self-loathing, cynicism and insecure maleness. David Foster Wallace is my mess of racing thoughts and my postmodernist. Zadie Smith is my ambition. Chris Hedges is my outrage and drive for progress. Raymond Carver, my self-destruction and salvation.
That covers some of it. I just wanted to give it a quick mention, inspired by the moment, now an hour ago, when I picked up this book of Ruben Dario poems and, before cracking it, just got the feeling that this book was going to be big and important.
THE PUNK ROCK NEIGHBORHOOD 